hypersongs

Coleman Hawkins

The tenor saxophonist who made the instrument a jazz voice, with Fletcher Henderson in the 1920s and then, in October 1939, a two-chorus "Body and Soul" that became the most imitated ballad solo in jazz.

From St. Joseph to Fletcher Henderson

Coleman Randolph Hawkins was born in St. Joseph, Missouri on November 21, 1904, named for his mother Cordelia's maiden name. He started piano at five, cello at seven and the saxophone by nine, and was playing professionally in eastern Kansas by fourteen. His first significant job, in 1921, was with Mamie Smith's Jazz Hounds, which took him to New York in 1922. In 1924 he joined the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra, where he stayed until 1934; the band's style changed during Louis Armstrong's year there (1924 to 1925), and Hawkins was among its leading soloists.

In 1934 he went to Europe, joined Jack Hylton's orchestra in London and toured as a soloist through Britain, France and Scandinavia. In Paris in 1937 he recorded with Django Reinhardt and Benny Carter, and he came home as the war began.

Body and Soul

Back in New York in July 1939 he had a contract to lead a nine-piece group at Kelly's Stable on 52nd Street. On October 11, 1939 he recorded four tunes for Bluebird, the RCA Victor subsidiary, with the last of them "Body and Soul". He decided to treat the song informally, as a two-chorus ballad feature for himself over the simplest of arrangements. Only the first few bars are recognizably the melody: Kenny Berger wrote in the Oxford Companion to Jazz that he hints at the tune during his first six bars but is improvising from the start. John Chilton later called it the most perfectly conceived and executed example of jazz tenor-sax playing ever recorded. It became his biggest hit and made him a national name.

Hawkins himself was relaxed about it: he said he was making notes all the way and did not listen to it afterwards. In a 1956 interview he remembered that when the record came out everybody said he was playing the wrong notes in it.

Bebop, Europe and the last years

On February 16, 1944 Hawkins led what is generally considered the first bebop recording session, with Dizzy Gillespie, Don Byas, Clyde Hart, Oscar Pettiford and Max Roach, and in October that year another with Thelonious Monk. Keynote's Harry Lim called him the Picasso of jazz in a 1944 Metronome article, and in 1948 Norman Granz issued "Picasso" on Clef, an unaccompanied saxophone piece generally called the first on record. After 1948 he divided his time between New York and Europe.

He played the 1957 Newport Jazz Festival, took part in Thelonious Monk's Monk's Music with John Coltrane that June, and made We Insist! with Max Roach (1960), Duke Ellington Meets Coleman Hawkins and Today and Now (both 1962, Impulse!) and Sonny Meets Hawk! (1963). Lester Young called him the first president of the tenor saxophone, and Miles Davis said Hawkins taught him to play ballads. Hawkins died on May 19, 1969. He was named to the Jazz at Lincoln Center Hall of Fame in 2004, and "Body and Soul" entered the Library of Congress National Recording Registry the same year.

Albums

  • Body and Soul 1996 · compilation · RCA

    An RCA compilation of Hawkins's 1939 to 1956 recordings, built around the 1939 "Body and Soul".

Songs

  • Body and Soul Body and Soul · 1939

    Johnny Green's 1930 song, in the October 11, 1939 recording that Coleman Hawkins made at the end of a Bluebird session.

Sources

  1. Coleman Hawkins, Wikipedia
  2. Coleman Hawkins, New World Encyclopedia
  3. Coleman Hawkins, EBSCO
  4. Body and Soul (1930 song), Wikipedia